Aeroseal Technology

AEROSEAL TECHNOLOGY

A Duct Sealing Game-changer

Aeroseal is a breakthrough duct sealing technology that offers homeowners and commercial property owners the first and only fast, safe and highly effective way to seal duct leaks.

In the early 90s, the U.S. Department of Energy, along with the Environmental Protection Agency and others sponsored research at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory to find a solution to what they saw as one of the most critical home energy conservation problems – how do you find and seal air duct leaks in existing homes without having to tear down walls or strip apart insulation? Several years later, the Berkeley Lab scientists came up with a solution based upon revolutionary thinking: if we can’t access the leaks from the outside of the ductwork, let’s do it from the inside.

The breakthrough sealant they developed, called aeroseal, is applied as a non-toxic aerosol mist that is pumped throughout the inside of the home’s air duct system. The aerosol particles, about the size of smoke particles, do not coat the inside of the ductwork, but instead, stay suspended in air until they come across leaks. There they accumulate and bond together around the holes until the leaks are filled.

Tests indicate that aeroseal sealant can last the lifetime of the home and ECS (now CMC Energy Services) guarantees it for up to a decade. It takes less than a day to set up the equipment, apply the sealant and have everything packed of and finished. Best of all, when the job is done, homeowners can immediately feel and see the results for themselves.

Aeroseal is applied with the help of specialized software that controls the flow of the sealant and provides a real time progress report of the process. During the sealing, the computer monitor shows a graph with a minute-by-minute view of the sealing in progress. When the job is completed, the homeowner is given a printout report that shows the before and after leakage amounts and the overall reduction levels attained.

In most cases, aerosealing a home can stop most if not all of the leakage, saving average homeowners 30 percent or more on a typical home heating or air conditioning bill. Customers often find that the savings they get from sealing their ductwork pays for the cost of aerosealing in less than three years – that’s about 23 times faster than upgrading windows – 30 times faster than insulating walls.

In addition to energy savings, effective duct sealing can have an immediate impact on home comfort and issues related to air quality. Leaks in the ductwork rob the fan’s ability to move treated air throughout the system. Like trying to suck water through a straw with holes in it, no amount of energy can do the job. Homes that suffer with rooms that never get enough heat in the winter or air conditioned air in the summer are likely suffering from leaky ductwork.

Dusty homes and symptoms of indoor allergies are also typical signs of duct leakage. Allergens such as dirt and pollen from outside the home are regularly sucked into the air ducts by the furnace or air conditioner. Leaks and gaps in the air ducts allow these allergens to bypass filters and get blown throughout the house.

Until the advent of aeroseal technology, there was little if anything a homeowner could do to effectively fix duct leaks. Tape and mastic could be manually applied to leaks that could be easily found, but most of your ductwork is hidden behind walls, under insulation or other hard to reach places. Aeroseal solves this problem by working from the inside to seal leaks. The U.S. Department of Energy awarded aeroseal technology its Energy 23 Award, calling it one of the most significant developments in energy saving technologies to be made available to homeowners since the DOE was first established.